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Short abstract:

In my fieldwork on fire management in Australia, I have witnessed two temporal orientations towards major disasters such as the 2019-20 Black Summer bushfires. Considering these orientations, this paper offers reflections on an untenable “situation normal” of emergency logics and climate change.

Long abstract:

During and after the 2019-20 Black Summer bushfires in southeast Australia, I witnessed the performance of two temporal orientations towards the massive infernos that sprawled across at least 8 million hectares of forest and grassland. Amongst climate activists and others, these fires were an evental rupture, tangible proof of a climate emergency demanding urgent mass mobilisation. “This changes everything,” protestors announced. Prominent fire researchers declared the fires “a wake-up call.” Appearing before one of several government inquiries, a former fire chief summarised that: “There’s a need for a step change in how we deal [with the enemy] - the enemy being climate change.” Alternately, my interlocutors within emergency management revealed a different orientation, addressing the disaster as a climate-forced pulse within familiar and interminable government rhythms of crisis, inquiry, and reform. While intimately attuned to the increasing flammability of Australian landscapes, shaped by ongoing histories of colonialism and extractivism, they were nonetheless confident about the political and cultural grip of preparedness and resilience thinking. As two analysts told me in 2020, this was a “SNAFU or ‘situation normal, all fucked up.’” Several years later, these emergency professionals appear to be correct, with the urgency of Black Summer now having been domesticated into orthodox programs of risk planning, monitoring and compliance. Revisiting the temporalisations of the Black Summer disaster, this paper considers the extent to which critical reflections on emergency logics offer possible routes out of an untenable “situation normal.”